Finland-based manufacturer reports Q3 profit, announces 1,800 layoffs

Claiming a clear mandate for change, new Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop announced on Thursday that, as part of a restructuring, the mobile device maker will lose 1,800 jobs, slightly more than 1 percent of its current work force of 132,000.

The layoff announcement came with Nokia's third-quarter earnings report, which showed a profit of $737.9 million (U.S. dollars), up from last year's Q3 loss off $780 million (which included a steep impairment charge).

Nokia reported revenue of $7.36 million (U.S.), a gain of 4.7 percent over last year's Q3 revenue.

The Finnish company has lost mobile OS market share to Apple's iPhone and devices powered by Google's Android. It hopes to get back in the game with the N8, a high-end smartphone powered by the company's own mobile OS, Symbian ^3.

While Nokia remains committed to Symbian, the company now predicts it will lose mobile device market share this year from 2009, after previously forecasting flat growth.

Elop, the former Microsoft executive who took over five weeks ago from outgoing Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, offered a candid assessment of Nokia's current situation in remarks accompanying the earnings release: "Our company faces a remarkably disruptive time in the industry, with recent results demonstrating that we must reassess our role in and our approach to this industry."